As it was Sunday we had breakfast then a reading, discussion and prayer before leaving to do the Manning Gorge walk. To access the trail you had to cross the river – a barrel on a pulley system was provided to get your gear across dry. It was already pretty hot so it was great to start the walk with a cool swim and then walk in your cozzies to the gorge pool and falls.

There had been a bushfire 2 days ago and parts of it were still smouldering. As we climbed higher the views back towards the campsite and beyond were beautiful.

The walk was not too difficult – fairly even path with a few rocky sections but lots to see on the way – boabs, gums and great views.

After a couple of rocky gullies up and down we arrived at the gorge which had an amazing swimming hole – very deep and clear with a sandy section. Unfortunately the waterfall was barely a trickle but it was such a serene and picturesque place it did not really matter.

The water was so deep it was safe to jump off the rocks so we swam, jumped and generally cooled off after the hot trek in.

Rosie gave instructions to the girls as to how to get your hair wet and keep your sunnies dry….

We spent a fair bit of time there enjoying the ambience of the place….

eventually we had to leave to make the 1.5km walk back – at least there was a great rockpool to swim in at the end of the journey!

Back at camp a whirly-whirly swept through the area – quite a large one – by the time it was captured on camera it had started to dissipate vut it caused a bit of havoc in one area of the campground.

Rosie was on a mission to get her thongs clean so out came the bucket and pumice stone – first person ever known to use pumice on their thongs!!

As it had been cold we decided to have another fire – and again a huge amount of firewood was collected….no damper tonight but we had marshmallows and chocolate fondue instead…awesome dessert when camping.